Calls for full details of water buybacks after Coalition process questioned

A government department is under pressure to release, in full, all documents relating to an 80-million-dollar taxpayer-funded water buyback. The former Deputy Prime Minister and water minister, Barnaby Joyce, is defending his decision to approve the water buyback to a company once linked to a Coalition frontbencher.

The Federal Government has reached a new agreement to deliver the $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Source: Supplied

In 2017, then-water minister Barnaby Joyce approved a deal which saw the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources buy water from Eastern Australia Agriculture, a company co-founded by current Energy Minister Angus Taylor.

The company is controlled by Eastern Australia Irrigation which is based in the Cayman Islands, a well-known tax haven.

Angus Taylor served as a director of the Australian company in 2008 and 2009 but severed his ties before entering the parliament in 2013.

He has put out a statement saying he did not have an interest in Eastern Australia Agriculture, did not receive a benefit from the sale and did not take part in the negotiations over the water sale.